(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a tag attaching device and, more particularly, to a device for dispensing tag pins made of a plastic for attaching price tags, labels or the like to goods.
(b) Description of the Prior Art
Plastic tag pins have heretofore been used for attaching tags, labels or the like to various goods. The tag pin usually includes a head portion, a lateral bar portion and a filament portion interconnecting the head portion and the lateral bar portion. These portions are integrally molded to provide a substantially H-shaped assembly. To this end, a plurality of tag pins are integrated at a predetermined pitch in the thickness direction to form a comb-like tag pin assembly. Namely, tag pins are connected at their joint portions to a connecting bar in the form of a comb. In other words, each tag pin has a joint portion at which the lateral bar portion thereof is connected to the connecting bar.
Various sizes and shapes of tag pins are commercially available. Naturally, different tag pin assemblies have different pitches of tag pins.
The tag attaching device is a device having a form resembling a pistol and adapted to separate tag pins one by one from the tag pin assembly. The separated tag pin is guided with its lateral bar portion through a hollow needle with a longitudinal slot and penetrates a price tag and an item of goods, thereby to attach the price tag to an article.
The conventional tag attaching device has a feeding device for feeding the tag pin assembly by the action of a gear having gear teeth meshing with the joint portions between each tag pin and the connecting bar, thereby to intermittently feed tag pins successively to the position of the hollow needle. Since this gear has a constant pitch of teeth, this conventional tag attaching device can be applied only to tag pin assemblies having a pitch of tag pins corresponding to the pitch of the feeding gear. This requires users of the tag attaching device to prepare a plurality of tag attaching devices having tag pin feeding gears of different pitches corresponding to pitches of tag pins of different tag pin assemblies.